The present invention relates to the field of baseball.
The use of colored target portions formed upon a baseball glove to enhance accuracy in aiming a baseball at a player wearing the glove has been suggested long ago in the prior art. In U.S. Pat. No. 2,662,225 issued to Wheeler in 1953, an oil filled pocket, provided for another purpose, is built into the glove, and Wheeler briefly suggests that if the oil itself does not produce sufficient contrast on the cover of the glove, coloring matter may be applied to the pocketed oil filled area to produce a desired visual contrast for targeting purposes. In U.S. Pat. No. 3,898,696 issued to Campanis in 1975, a target is formed upon manufacture of the glove by affixing two separate marginal members, each affixed to a catcher""s glove, to create a U-shaped area having a bright contrast and surrounding a central glove portion.
These approaches create problems for the manufacturers as they increase the manufacturing costs of the gloves due to added complexity, and what is perhaps more important, is that having an optional, additional type of glove bearing the target members, impedes marketing of the gloves, since this causes distributors and retailers to maintain and monitor inventories for two types of gloves rather than one. This may explain why these types of gloves have presumably not been sold in the marketplace.
The aforesaid disadvantages of the prior art approaches set forth above are eliminated by providing a relatively simple and inexpensive single or one-piece target device that can be marketed directly to persons that already have new or old gloves in their possession, by mail order or otherwise.
The invention aids a first player in accurately throwing a baseball at a glove of a second player and comprises the steps of supplying a thin, flexible, generally circular, one piece target member, separate from the glove, to a young player in previous possession of a glove, the target member having an outwardly facing portion having a color providing a high visual contrast with respect to the color of the remaining portions of the glove, and an inwardly facing, pressure sensitive xe2x80x9cpeel awayxe2x80x9d adhesive layer, for affixing the target member to the glove by easily and rapidly pressing the target member against the central glove portion.